"A tiny animated car slowly consumed the straight black line on the Uber app as it headed toward the blue dot-us. We were in the east end of Toronto, far from our home in the west. A grey SUV stopped in front of the clinic. We rushed out the door, Haroon holding a portable car seat, while Anam carried our daughter, Lina, in her arms."
"In this case, a loaded silence followed. "I was an ENT specialist," the driver eventually said. He had worked at the military hospital in Kabul before the Taliban assumed power and he came to Canada. The irony of it. There we were, on the wait list of four ENTs for a few months, being driven by one who couldn't yet practise in Canada despite his decades of experience."
A family traveled across Toronto for a pediatric appointment for their daughter, Lina, bundled briefly between clinic and car. Lina experienced recurring ear infections after starting daycare and had taken multiple courses of antibiotics. The pediatrician recommended an ENT specialist, and Lina was placed on several wait lists with no responses for months. Their Uber driver revealed he had been an ENT specialist at a military hospital in Kabul before leaving Afghanistan in 2021. The driver cannot yet practise in Canada despite decades of experience, highlighting a gap between local need and immigrant licensure.
Read at The Walrus
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